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The  Lectures  of  Bret  Harte 


BRET  HARTE  AS  A  LECTURER 


The  Lectures  of 
Bret  Harte 

Compiled  from  various  sources 


To  which  is  added 
The  Piracy  of  Bret  Harte's  Fables  " 


By 
Charles  Meeker  Kozlay 


Printed  and  Published  by 
CHARLES  MEEKER  KOZLAY 

BROOKLYN -NEW  YORK 
1909 


..3BARIAU  , 

Copyright,  1909,  by 
Charles  Meeker  Kozlay 


Entered  at  Stationer's  Hall 
London,  England 


All  Rights  Reserved 


.  3 1. 


PREFACE. 

WHIL,E  searching  for  material  relative  to 
Bret  Harte  I  came  across,  from  time 
to  time,  fragments  of  the  lectures  of  that  pop 
ular  American  humorist  and  writer.  These 
fragments  suggested  to  me  the  possibility  of 
bringing  the  complete  lectures  together  in  en 
during  book  form,  an  undertaking  which  had, 
because  of  its  extreme  difficulty,  never  before 
been  attempted.  This  little  book,  containing 
Harte's  two  lectures:  "The  Argonauts  of  '49," 
and  "American  Humor,"  and  in  addition,  the 
"Reply  to  'Toast  to  literature, '"  is  the  result 
of  my  work  along  this  line.  To  the  lectures 
I  have  added  an  article  entitled,  "The  Piracy 
of  Bret  Harte's  Fables"  giving,  as  its  name  im 
plies,  the  history  of  the  piracy  of  these  three 
little  parodies  on  ^Bsop's  work,  and  needing,  I 
believe,  no  further  comment  here.  The  Fables 
themselves  have  been  pictured,  especially  for 
this  edition,  by  the  well-known  illustrator, 
MERUS  JOHNSON. 

I  have  attempted  to  give  the  lectures  in  full, 
an  arduous  undertaking,  requiring  compilation 
from  innumerable  sources ;  the  newspaper  ac 
counts  of  the  lectures  giving  only  those  parts 


viii  PREFACE 

which  had  most  impressed  the  reporter.  The 
lectures  printed  are  the  only  two  that  Harte 
delivered;  in  fact,  although  "  The  Argonauts  of 
'49 "  may  be  remembered  by  some  the  lecture 
on  w American  Humor"  will  probably  be  a  sur 
prise  to  many,  Harte  having  here  ventured 
from  the  field  to  which  he  had  previously  con 
fined  himself. 

As  a  lecturer,  Bret  Harte  was  no  more  suc 
cessful  than  some  of  our  other  noted  American 
writers  who,  like  him,  attempted  this  line  of 
work.  Tall  and  slender,  a  gentleman  of  dis 
tinguished  bearing,  his  first  appearance  was  a 
disappointment  to  many  who  had  expected  to 
see  a  typical  Californian  in  dress  and  manner. 
His  demeanor  was  quiet  and  his  voice  hardly 
strong  enough  to  fill  some  of  the  halls  in  which 
he  spoke.  Harte  was  no  orator ;  he  lacked 
dramatic  action  and  expression,  his  gestures 
were  few  and  seldom  used.  The  truth  is  he 
was  without  enthusiasm,  his  heart  not  being 
in  this  work  because  it  was  distasteful  to  him. 
He  had  been  lured  to  the  lecture  platform 
by  the  glittering  offers  advanced  from  many 
quarters. 

Yet  his  lectures,  though  possessing  neither 
the  style  nor  elaboration  of  his  writings,  per- 


PREFACE  ix 

fectly  embody  in  the  case  of  "The  Argonauts 
of  '49,"  the  poetry  and  significance  of  the  won 
derful  era  portrayed.  The  descriptive  passages 
are  strong  and  finely  relieved  by  selections 
from  the  inexhaustible  wealth  of  stories  and 
epigrams  which  Harte  possessed.  Almost  every 
where  his  large  audiences  gave  unequivocal 
signs  of  a  decided  appreciation  and  thorough 
enjoyment  of  the  lectures,  and  although,  be 
cause  of  poor  management,  the  lectures  in  some 
cases  were  a  financial  disappointment,  they 
were  none  the  less  well  received  and  worthy 
of  preservation. 

C.  M.  K. 


CONTENTS 

Lectures  : 

The  Argonauts  of  '49             .  .         .         .         .           1 

American  Humor        .         .         .  •    • 

Reply  to  "Toast  to  Literature"  .         .         .         .        31 

Fables  : 

The  Fox  and  the  Grapes              .  .         .         .            36 

The  Fox  and  the  Stork           .  .         .         .         .38 

The  Wolf  and  the  Lamb    ......  40 

The  Piracy  of  Bret  Harte's  Fables  .         .         .         .        45 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Bret  Harte  as  a  Lecturer  .         .         .         .        Frontispiece 

San  Francisco  in  1848  .         .         .        .         .         ,          4 

San  Francisco  in  1849    .......      8 

Lecture  Advertisements  ......         20 

Bret  Harte— Cartoon      .  .         .         .         .         .         .32 

The  Fox  and  the  Grapes  .         .         .         .         .         37 

The  Fox  and  the  Stork 39 

The  Wolf  and  the  Lamb  .                                                        41 


The  Argonauts  of  '49 


The  Argonauts  of  '49 

California's  Golden  Age 


Lecture  by  BRET  HARTE,  delivered  in  the  Martin  Opera 
House,  Albany,  N.  Y.,  Dec.  3,  1872;  Tremont  Temple, 
Boston,  Mass.,  Dec.  13,  1872;  Steinway  Hall,  New  York, 
Dec.  16,  1872;  Lincoln  Hall,  Washington,  D.  C.,  Jan.  7, 
1873;  Library  Hall,  Pittsburg,  Pa.,  Jan.  9,  1873;  Ottawa 
and  Montreal,  Canada,  March,  1873;  Mercantile  Library 
Hall,  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  Oct.  17,  1873;  Topeka,  Atchison, 
Lawrence,  Kansas  City,  Kan.,  October,  1873;  London, 
England,  January,  1879,  and  June,  1880,  and  in  other 
places.  Compiled  from  various  sources. 

1  REGARD  the  story  of  the  Argonauts  of  '49 
as  an  episode  in  American  life  as  quaint  as 
that  of  the  Greek  adventurers ;  a  kind  of  cru 
sade  without  a  cross,  an  exodus  without  a 
prophet.  It  is  not  a  pretty  story  ;  perhaps  it  is 
not  even  instructive ;  it  is  of  a  life  of  which 
perhaps  the  best  that  can  be  said  is  that  it 
exists  no  longer. 

For  more  than  three  hundred  years  California 
was  of  all  Christian  countries  the  least  known. 
It  was  set  down  on  old  English  maps  as  a  very 
strange  locality,  and  in  one  instance  was  named 
as  an  island!  The  history  of  its  discovery  was 
wrapped  in  Spanish  tradition.  One  Spanish 


2  THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49 

discoverer  reported  that  he  found  it  on  a  voyage 
from  the  Pacific  to  Lake  Superior,  where  he 
found  a  Yankee  vessel  from  Boston,  whose  cap 
tain  informed  him  that  he  had  come  there  from 
the  Atlantic  only  a  few  days  before. 

Along  the  long  line  of  centuries  the  old  free 
booters  had  cruised  along  its  shores  and  captured 
their  booty  and  plunder.  Only  quite  recently 
a  band  of  gold  diggers  came  upon  a  large  piece 
of  wax  in  the  broken  ribs  of  a  rotten  ship.  Cal 
ifornia  heard  and  was  at  once  fired  with  the 
discovery,  and  in  a  few  weeks  they  were  search 
ing  the  ruins  for  the  lost  treasure  of  the  Phillip- 
pine  galleon.  At  last  they  found  a  few  cutlasses 
with  the  British  broad -arrow  on  their  blades. 
These  only  showed  that  the  enterprising  and 
gallant  Sir  Francis  Drake  had  been  there  before 
them. 

Do  Americans  ever  think  that  they  owe  to  the 
Catholic  Church  and  the  Morman  brotherhood 
their  rights  to  California  ?  Yet  Father  Junipero 
Serra,  ringing  his  bell  in  the  heathen-wilderness 
of  Upper  Cailfornia,  and  Brigham  Young,  lead 
ing  his  half -famished  legions  to  Salt  Lake,  were 
the  two  great  pioneers  of  the  Argonauts  of  '49. 

The  first  comes  to  us  toiling  over  a  Southern 
plain,  an  old  man,  weak,  emaciated,  friendless 


THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49  3 

and  alone.  He  has  left  his  muleteers  and  acolytes 
a  league  behind  him,  and  has  wandered  on  without 
scrip  or  wallet,  bearing  only  a  crucifix  and  bell. 
It  is  a  characteristic  plain — one  that  your  tourists 
do  not  penetrate — scorched  yet  bleak,  windswept, 
blasted,  baked  to  its  very  foundations,  and 
cracked  into  gaping  chasms.  As  the  pitiless  sun 
goes  down,  the  old  man  staggers  forward  and 
falls  utterly  exhausted.  He  lies  there  all  night. 
Towards  morning  he  is  found  by  some  Indians — 
a  feeble,  simple  race — who  in  uncouth  kindness 
offer  him  food  and  drink.  But  before  he  accepts 
either  he  rises  to  his  knees,  and  there  says 
matins  and  baptizes  them  in  the  Catholic  faith. 
And  then  it  occurs  to  him  to  ask  them  where 
he  is,  and  he  finds  that  he  has  penetrated  into 
the  unknown  land .  It  was  Padre  Junipero  Serra ; 
and  the  sun  rose  that  morning  on  Christian  Cali 
fornia.  Weighed  by  the  usual  estimate  of  suc 
cess  his  mission  was  a  failure.  The  heathen 
stole  his  provisions  and  massacred  his  acolytes. 
It  is  said  that  the  good  fathers  themselves  con 
founded  baptism  and  bondage  and  laid  the 
foundation  of  peonage ;  but  in  the  blood-stained 
and  tear-blotted  chronicle  of  the  early  California 
there  is  not  a  more  heroic  figure  than  this  travel- 


4  THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49 

worn,  self -centered,  self-denying  Franciscan 
friar. 

All  the  western  emigration  that  prior  to  the 
gold  discoveries  penetrated  the  Oregon  and  Cal 
ifornia  valleys  and  half  Americanized  the  coast, 
would  have  perished  by  the  way  but  for  the 
providentially  created  oasis  of  Salt  Lake  City. 
The  halting  teams  of  alkali-poisoned  oxen,  the 
footsore  and  despairing  teamsters,  gathered  rest 
and  succor  from  the  Mormon  settlement.  The 
British  frigate  that  sailed  into  the  port  of  Mon 
terey  a  day  too  late,  saw  the  American  flag  that 
had  crossed  the  continent  flying  from  the  cross 
of  the  Cathedral !  A  day  sooner  and  an  English 
man  might  have  been  telling  you  this  story. 

Those  were  peaceful,  pastoral  days  for  Califor 
nia,  when  the  Angelus  bells  rang  out  peacefully 
and  summoned  the  good  people  to  prayers  and 
sleep  before  9  o'clock  every  night.  On  the  plains 
simple  rancheros  led  peaceful  lives,  wax  tapers 
burned  in  all  the  cities,  and  on  the  hills  the 
Indians  roamed,  dressed  neatly  but  not  expen 
sively — in  mud.  They  were  happy  tranquil  days. 

But  a  political  and  social  earthquake  more 
powerful  than  any  physical  convulsion  ever 
known  shook  the  foundation  of  the  land,  and 
in  the  disrupted  strata  the  favorite  treasure 


THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49  5 

suddenly  glittered  before  their  eyes.  Then  a 
change,  which  had  been  strengthened  by  a  chain 
of  circumstances,  came  upon  them  suddenly.  It 
was  not  the  finding  of  a  few  grains  of  gold,  but 
that  for  years  the  way  had  been  slowly  opening 
and  the  doors  unlocking  for  the  people  who 
were  to  profit  by  the  discovery. 

These  '  'Argonauts' '  were  a  lawless,  irreligious 
band  of  men.  They  were  given  to  no  supersti 
tious  rites,  enthused  by  no  high  ambition,  and, 
until  they  saw  them,  skeptical  even  of  the  exist  - 
ance  of  the  gold  fields.  Embarked  in  an  adven 
ture,  they  accepted,  in  a  kind  of  calm  philoso 
phy,  whatever  it  might  bring. 

"if  there  is  no  gold,  what  are  you  going  to  do 
with  those  sluice  boxes,"  said  a  newly-arrived 
fortune-seeker  to  his  friend.  "They  will  make 
first-class  coffins, ' '  was  the  reply  of  a  man  who 
had  calculated  all  his  chances.  If  they  did  not 
burn  their  vessels  behind  them,  they  at  least  left 
the  good  ship  Argo  to  lie  dismantled  and  idle  at 
the  wharf.  Sailors  were  shipped  only  for  the 
outward  voyage.  Nobody  expected  to  return, 
even  if  he  anticipated  failure.  Even  failure 
would,  by  their  expediency,  be  made  to  show  a 
certain  amount  of  success.  Until  recently  there 
stood  in  San  Francisco  a  house  of  the  earlier 


6  THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49 

period  whose  foundations  were  built  entirely  of 
boxes  containing  plug  tobacco.  It  was  expensive, 
but  lumber  for  foundations  was  at  a  tremendous 
premium.  An  Argonaut  who  recognized  in  the 
boatman  who  pulled  him  ashore  (and  charged 
him  the  modest  sum  of  fifty  dollars  for  the  favor) 
a  brother  classmate  of  Oxford,  asked  him:  '  'Were 
you  not  senior  wrangler  in  the  class  of  '43?" 
"Yes, "said  the  other  significantly,  "but  I  was 
also  stroke  oar  in  the  regatta." 

At  my  first  breakfast  in  a  restaurant  in  San 
Francisco  I  was  attended  by  a  waiter  who  bore 
a  strong  resemblance  to  a  person  I  had  always 
admired  as  the  model  of  refined  good  breeding. 
Not  wishing  to  wound  the  feelings  of  the  waiter 
— who  carried  a  revolver  —  I  inquired  of  the 
proprietor  of  the  hotel  whether  he  was  not,  in 
fact,  a  person  who  in  the  East  had  filled  a  much 
higher  position.  The  landlord  confirmed  the 
suspicion,  and  added:  "He's  mighty  handy,  and 
can  talk  elegantly  to  a  customer  as  is  waiting  for 
his  cakes,  and  can  make  him  forget  that  he  is 
starving."  I  asked  him  if  it  would  be  possible 
to  fill  his  place.  "l  am  afraid  not,"  said  the 
proprietor,  with  a  tone  of  suspicion,  and  he 
added,  significantly,  "l  don't  think  you  would 
suit." 


THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49  7 

It  was  wonderful  adaptability,  perhaps  the  in 
fluence  of  the  climate,  that  produced  in  them 
this  element  of  success.  Much  of  this  adapta 
bility  was  due  to  the  character  of  the  people. 
What  that  character  was,  perhaps  it  would  not 
be  well  for  me  to  say ;  at  least  I  should  prefer  to 
defer  criticism  until  I  had  arrived  at  a  safe  dis 
tance  from  the  historian.  In  distant  parts  of 
the  country  they  had  left  families,  friends,  and 
in  some  cases  officers  of  justice,  perplexed  and 
bewildered.  There  were  husbands  who  had  de 
serted  their  own  wives,  and,  in  some  extreme 
cases,  the  wives  of  others. 

Nor  was  it  possible  to  tell  from  their  superficial 
exterior  whether  they  were  or  were  not  named 
in  this  general  indictment.  Some  of  the  best 
men  had  the  worst  record,  and  some  of  the  worst 
rejoiced  in  a  spotless  Puritan  pedigree.  "The 
boys  seem  to  have  taken  a  fresh  deal  all  around, ' ' 
said  old  John  Oakhurst,  "and  there's  no  knowing 
whether  a  man  will  turn  up  jack  or  king."  It 
may  be  said  of  John  Oakhurst  himself  that  he 
came  of  a  family  who  regarded  games  of  chance 
as  sinful,  and  who  had  never  believed  that  a  man 
could  be  successful  by  them.  "To  think,"  said 
Mr.  Oakhurst,  after  a  game  of  ten  minutes  from 
which  he  made  $5000 — "to  think  as  folks  believe 
that  keards  is  a  waste  of  time." 


8  THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49 

In  San  Francisco  in  those  early  days  every 
body  played.  A  gambler  died  at  the  table,  and 
three  doctors  who  happened  to  be  there  examined 
him  and  pronounced  that  the  cause  of  death  was 
disease  of  the  heart:  the  coroner,  who  was  acci 
dentally  present,  empanelled  a  jury  from  the 
other  players,  who  returned  a  verdict  in  accord 
ance  with  the  evidence  and  went  on  with  the 
game. 

I  would  not  have  it  inferred  that  there  was  no 
respectability  in  morals  among  the  people  of  that 
time;  but  their  character  grew,  and  the  strongest 
was  not  always  the  best.  Let  me  bring  them 
nearer  to  you  and  sketch  for  you  two  pictures — 
one  in  their  city  by  the  sea  and  one  in  their  little 
cabins  in  the  camps  of  the  Sierras. 

In  the  San  Francisco  of  1852  flour  was  worth 
$50.  a  barrel,  and  a  glimpse  of  a  woman's  face 
was  one  of  the  comforts  for  which  the  hardy  ad 
venturers  sighed.  The  gambling  saloon  was  the 
central  point  of  interest  in  the  history  of  the 
Argonauts.  It  was  approached  by  no  mysterious 
passage  or  guarded  entrance,  and  frequently 
opened  from  the  street,  with  every  invitation  of 
gilding,  lights  and  music.  And  yet  they  were 
the  quietest  halls  in  San  Francisco :  there  was  no 
drunkenness,  no  quarreling,  scarcely  an  exulta- 


THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49  9 

tion  or  disappointment.  Business  men  who  had 
gambled  all  day  in  other  enterprises  found  nothing 
here  to  unduly  excite  them,  and  in  the  intervals 
of  music  a  beautiful  calm  pervaded  the  room. 
People  moved  around  noiselessly  from  table  to 
table  as  if  fortune  were  nervous  as  well  as  fickle. 
A  cane  falling  upon  the  floor  caused  everyone  to 
look  up,  and  a  loud  laugh  excited  indignation. 
There  was  a  Western  man  who,  having  made  a 
few  thousands  in  the  mines,  came  to  San  Francisco 
to  take  a  steamer  home.  On  the  night  before  he 
was  to  sail  he  entered  the  Argo  saloon,  seated 
himself  at  the  table  in  sheer  listlessness,  staked 
$20.  and  won.  He  won  again.  In  two  hours  he 
won  a  fortune.  An  hour  later  he  rose  from  the 
table  a  ruined  man.  The  steamer  sailed  without 
him.  He  was  a  simple  man,  knowing  little  of 
the  world,  and  the  sudden  winning  and  losing  of 
a  fortune  crazed  him. 

He  went  again  to  his  work  and  regularly  took 
his  seat  at  the  table  and  spent  the  earnings  he  had 
saved.  So  a  year  passed.  If  he  had  forgotten 
a  waiting  wife,  she  had  not  forgotten  him  and 
one  evening  she  landed,  with  her  child,  upon 
the  pier  at  San  Francisco,  penniless  and  alone. 
She  told  her  story  to  John  Oakhurst,  who  quietly 
provided  for  her  wants.  Two  or  three  evenings 


10  THE  ARGONAUTS  OF    '49 

after,  the  Western  man  won  some  trifle,  and  then 
gained  other  plays  in  succession  and  it  really 
seemed  as  though  fortune  had  come  again.  John 
Oakhurst  saw  his  joy  and  said:  "l  will  give  you 
three  thousand  dollars  for  your  next  deal."  He 
hesitated.  "Your  wife  is  at  the  door:  Will  you 
take  it? "  The  man  accepted :  but  the  spirit  of  the 
gambler  was  strong  within  him  and,  as  Mr.  Oak- 
hurst  fully  expected,  he  waited  to  see  the  result 
of  the  play.  Well,  John  Oakhurst  lost,  and, 
with  a  look  of  gratitude  the  man  turned,  aghast, 
seized  the  money  and  hurried  away  as  if  he  feared 
he  might  be  enchained  by  the  spell  which  bound 
him. 

"That  was  a  bad  spirit  of  your'n,  Jack,"  said 
his  friend.  "Yes, "said  Jack,  "but  I  got  so  tired 
of  seeing  that  fellow  around.  It  was  a  put-up 
game  between  the  dealer  and  me.  It  is  the  first 
time,"  he  added,  with  an  oath — which  I  think 
the  recording  angel  placed  to  his  credit — "it  is 
the  first  time  I  ever  played  a  game  that  was  not 
on  the  square." 

The  social  life  of  that  day  was  peculiar.  The 
best  dressed  men  were  gamblers,  and  the  best 
dressed  ladies  had  no  right  to  the  title.  Gentle 
men  young  in  years  had  wives  much  their  seniors 
and  considerably  larger  in  their  physical  persons, 


THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49  11 

and  often  one  lady  had  a  troop  of  gallants  to  do 
escort  duty  of  an  evening.  A  married  captain's 
wife  was  escorted  home  from  a  ball  by  every 
officer  in  the  garrison,  and  observed  that  now  at 
length  she  understood  the  meaning  of  the  expres 
sion,  (^'the  pleasure  of  your  company  .")  Surely 
in  the  multiplicity  of  such  attention  there  was 
safety,  and  especially  so  when  each  gentleman 
wore  his  revolver. 

A  wife  of  an  old  pioneer  used  to  show  a  chair 
with  a  hole  through  the  cushion  made  by  a  gentle 
man  caller  who  sat  down  in  bashful  confusion 
and  exploded  his  revolver. 

In  domestic  life  the  highest  excellence  in 
woman  was  to  keep  a  boarding-house,  and  to  be 
the  wife  of  an  aristocratic  Argonaut  was  to  be 
able  to  take  in  washing. 

When  a  baby  cried  in  a  theatre  the  people  cried 


"encore. 


Such  was  the  refined  life  of  the  Argonauts  in 
the  city  by  the  sea.  But  with  a  change  of  affairs 
a  corresponding  change  took  place  in  morals  and 
manners,  and  people  began  to  put  locks  on  their 
doors,  and  portable  property  was  no  longer  left 
out  at  night.  Fine  houses  were  built  ;  and 
dealers  were  convicted  of  forgery  and  deceit. 

California    is    a    country   unlike    any   other. 


12  THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49 

Nature  here  is  rude  and  unfinished  as  the  life  it 
self.  The  people  seem  to  have  come  here  a 
thousand  years  too  soon,  and  before  the  great 
hostess  was  ready  to  receive  them.  Everything 
is  new,  crude  and  strange.  There  is  nothing 
soft,  tender  or  pastoral  in  the  whole  landscape. 
Nature  invites  to  Homerics  rather  than  to  Bu 
colics. 

The  miners  in  the  hills  lived  a  wilder  life  than 
their  brother  Argonauts  of  the  cities.  Happily, 
their  wants  were  few  and  infrequent.  They  left 
behind  with  regret  the  chimneys  of  their  shanties, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  they  could  not  carry 
them  away  with  the  cabins,  which  were  made 
movable.  For  clothes  his  chief  reliance  was  in 
the  meal  sack,  that  robed  his  outer  after  it  had 
nourished  his  inner  man,  his  track  was  marked 
with  empty  oyster  cans,  he  met  the  native  upon 
the  common  footing  of  beans. 

It  was  often  that  the  diversity  of  amendments 
to  the  miner's  clothes  were  a  serious  perplexity 
to  the  recognition  of  the  person  wearing  them. 
In  the  earlier  days,  two  gentlemen  of  respecta 
bility  lost  their  identity  entirely  in  the  labels  of 
the  flour  sacks  which  had  been  added  to  their 
clothing,  so  that  one  of  them  came  to  be  called 
"Genesee  Mills"  and  the  other  "Eagle  Brand." 


THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49  13 

The  miners  were  generous  to  a  fault.  The 
"  Sanitary"  subscription,  by  which  north  and 
south  benefited  alike,  was  started  in  a  California 
barn,  "it  is  rough  upon  those  poor  fellows;  I 
am  sorry  for  them."  "How  much  are  you 
sorry?"  "Four  hundred  dollars."  The  next 
man  gave  $1000.;  in  half  an  hour  donations  of 
$15,000.  were  telegraphed  to  Washington,  and 
the  total  subscription  of  California  was  $3,000,- 
000  gold. 

The  miners  were,  above  all,  faithful  to  their 
partners  and  loved  them  with  a  love  passing 
women.  It  was  dangerous  to  interfere  in  part 
ner's  quarrels.  Once  a  stranger  at  a  bar  who 
had  not,  so  far  as  he  knew,  given  offense  to  any 
person  present,  suddenly  found  himself  upon  the 
floor  and  a  tall  Kentuckian  standing  over  him 
with  his  revolver  out.  When  the  tall  gentleman 
was  courteously  asked  for  an  explanation,  he 
said:  "I  ain't  nothing  against  the  stranger  my 
self,  but  he  said  something  just  now  against 
Quakers,  and  I  want  him  to  understand  that  my 
partner  is  a  Quaker  and  a  peaceful  man." 

The  Argonauts  were  not  prone  to  sentimental- 
isms,  although  the3r  knew  what  homesickness 
was.  When  they  dealt  in  sarcasm  it  was  grim 
and  striking.  Lynch  law  determined  that  horse 


14  THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49 

stealing  should  be  punished  by  death;  but  once 
a  jury  took  several  minutes  after  retiring  to  con 
sider  their  verdict,  perhaps  from  humanity,  per 
haps  because  there  had,  in  consequence  of  the 
rigor  of  the  law,  been  a  great  mortality  among 
the  male  population.  The  leader  of  the  crowd 
put  his  head  into  the  jury  room  and  said  he  did 
not  wish  to  hurry  the  gentlemen  but  they  wanted 
that  room  to  lay  out  the  corpse  in. 

From  California  came  such,  now  world-wide, 
slang  as\"dry  up,"  ' 'played  oiit,"  "take  stock" 
and  "passing  in  your  cheques."  A  miner  said  of 
a  forcible  sermon  that  the  preacher  seemed  to  him 
"to  have  taken  every  trick."  On  the  other  hand, 
a  teamster,  blamed  for  his  intemperate  language, 
said  :  "I  don't  call  that  swearing.  You  should 
hear  Bill  Jones  exhort  the  impenitent  mule." 

A  barman,  after  a  night  in  which  pistol-shots 
had  freely  punctuated  the  village  revelry,  ap 
peared  in  the  morning  with  his  face  bound  up, 
but  with  a  very  happy  expression,  and  observed 
that  the  bar  was  new,  and  that  it  was  only  on 
the  previous  evening  "that  the  boys  seemed  to 
be  getting  really  acquainted." 

The  hardly  musical  names  given  by  the  Argo 
nauts  to  places  in  California  are  fast  superceding 
the  names  left  there  by  the  Spaniards  as  an  only 
legacy. 


THE  ARGONAUTS  OF  '49  15 

The  "Heathen  Chinee"  suffers  many  injuries 
in  California  but  he  nevertheless  persistently 
attains  his  ends.  He  will  chat  affably  to  a  cus 
tom-house  officer  from  his  seat  on  a  chair,  the 
hollow  legs  of  which  are  stuffed  with  smuggled 
opium,  and  will  assume  the  name  and  expression 
of  a  brother  celestial  to  cheat  the  collectors  of 
the  poll-tax.  In  spite  of  the  indignation  of  the 
Calif ornian  the  Chinaman  practices  all  their  vices. 

I  once  more  refer  to  the  Argonauts  of  '49.  In 
the  rank  and  file  there  may  be  many  known  per 
sonally  to  some  of  this  audience.  There  may  be 
gaps  which  the  memory  of  others  may  supply. 
There  are  homes  all  through  America  whose  va 
cant  places  can  never  be  filled.  There  are  graves 
all  over  California  on  whose  nameless  mounds 
none  shall  weep.  I  should  like  to  end  this  picture 
with  a  flourish,  but  the  trumpets  and  the 
bands  have  gone  on  before  and  the  mountains 
are  beginning  to  hide  the  Argonauts  from  our 
view.  They  are  marching  to  the  city  by  the  sea; 
they  are  marching  for  the  sail  of  the  last  Argo, 
and  when  the  last  Argonaut  shall  have  passed 
in,  she  too  will  spread  her  white  wings  and  slip 
unnoticed  through  the  golden  gate  to  the  haven 
that  opens  in  the  distance. 


American  Humor 


gg 

American  Humor 


Lecture  by  BRET  HARTE,  delivered  in  Farwell  Hall, 
Chicago,  Ills.,  on  December  10,  1874,  and  in  Association 
Hall,  New  York,  January  26,  1875.  Compiled  from  various 
sources. 


1AM  aware  that  the  magnitude  of  my  title  may 
seem  somewhat  ambitious  for  both  performer 
and  performance.  I  therefore  hasten  to  say  that  I 
will  assume  at  the  outset  that  it  is  doubtful  if 
there  is  any  such  thing  as  American  humor  as  a 
nationally  distinct  intellectual  quality.  I  fear, 
however,  that  I  must  borrow  so  much  of  that 
which  has  of  late  years  been  recognized  as  a 
form  of  national  humor  as  to  say  that  it  "re 
minds  me  of  a  little  story." 

Some  years  ago  I  was  riding  on  the  box  of  a 
California  stage-coach  with  a  friend  and  the 
driver.  As  my  fellow  passenger  was  a  man  of 
some  literary  attainment  our  conversation  fell 
upon  some  of  the  early  English  humorists.  After 
my  friend  had  departed,  the  driver,  who  had 
taken  no  part  in  the  conversation,  asked  me : 
"What  were  you  talking  about,  sir,  that  made 


20  AMERICAN   HUMOR 

you  laugh  so  much?"  I  informed  him  that  the 
early  English  humorists  had  been  the  topic  of 
conversation.  "Well,"  said  the  driver,  "judging 
by  the  way  you  laughed,  I  should  have  thought 
you  were  talking  about  some  funny  men."  It 
was  probable  that  my  friend,  the  driver,  occu 
pied  the  position  of  a  good  many  American  and 
English  writers  who  are  inclined  to  accept  mod 
ern  extravagance,  which  is  sufficiently  character 
istic  of  our  people  to  be  called  national,  as  the 
true,  genuine  humor. 

I  will  try  to  prove  that  our  later  American 
humorists  are  not  so  much  purely  American  as 
they  are  modern;  that  they  stand  in  legitimate 
succession  to  their  early  English  brethren,  and 
that  what  is  called  the  humor  of  a  geographical 
section,  is  only  the  form  or  method  of  to-day. 
Sir  Richard  Steele  had  he  been  born  in  the 
United  States  would  have  developed  into  a 
Danbury  Newsman  and  had  Bailey  been  born  in 
London  and  educated  at  Temple  Bar  in  the  time 
of  Sir  Richard  Steele  he  would  have  described 
the  humorous  peculiarities  of  London  just  in  the 
manner  that  that  humorist  did.  This  is  an 
epoch  of  curt  speech,  and  magnetic  telegraphs 
and  independent  thought,  and  wherever  these 
conditions  exist  most  powerfully  humorous 


^!^:. ,. 


*&£$&* 

»o*«£>-2 


ttVAY~Sr— -- - 


served  ...     "•    *9 

jSSSS&fe^ 

—  The  American    Lecture   Bureau  •' 


announce  that  a  lecture  will  be  delivered 
MT.r.1.  o«  D= EVENING  of  thia 

BRET     HARTE 

'The  Argonauts  of  Forty-Nine." 

red  seats  at  50  cents,  may  be 

ter  Tuesday  morning. 


o 

G 

r 

21 


v.  M.  A.  lecture  Course 

BRET  HARTE ! 

Subject,  The  Argonauts  of  '49 

Tuesday  Evening,  Dec.  8d 

AT 

Martin  Opera  House 
Single   Tickets,    60  Cent* 
Doora  open  at  7^  o'clock 


\/lR.  BRET  HARTE  wilt  deliver  his  FIRST  LEC- 
•LVl  TURE  in  London  (The  Argonauts  of  -49)  in  AID  of 
the  FUNDS  of  the  VICTORIA  HOSPITAL  for  CHILDREN 
(nnder  Royal  and  distinguished  Patronage),  at  Steinway-hall  on 
Monday  evening,  zist  June,  at  8  o'clock.  Tickets,  numbered  and  re 
served  los.  6d.  and  55;  unreserved,  2s.  6d.  and  is.  may  be  obtained 
at  Steinway-hall,  Lower  Seymour-street,  Portman-square;and  of 

he  Secretary,  at  the  Hospital,  Queens-road,  CheUea,  S.  W. 


AMERICAN  HUMOR  21 

literature  will  be  found  most  embarrassed  by 
them.  But  the  humorist  remains  intact ;  he 
is  simply  an  observer.  I  will  go  further  and 
say  that  it  is  because  the  humorist  is  intact, 
because  he  is  old  fashioned,  because  even  in  a 
republican  country  he  is  the  most  tremendous 
conservative  and  aristocrat — that  it  is  because 
he  is  all  this  he  is  an  observer. 

Before  the  birth  of  its  characteristic  humor, 
American  literature  was  even  more  ancient  than 
contemporaneous  literature  in  England.  Even 
Irving  tried  to  introduce  the  old  fashioned  style 
of  the  Spectator  in  his  "Salmagundi." 

I  am  quite  ready  to  believe  that  the  quick 
apprehension  of  some  of  my  auditors  will  antici 
pate  me  with  the  suggestion  that  the  Yankee 
dialect  and  character  are  the  earliest  expression 
of  American  humor.  Unfortunately,  however, 
for  the  theory  of  national  humor,  it  was  not  a 
Yankee  or  American  who  first  invented  it  or  gave 
it  a  place  in  American  literature.  Even  as  we 
owe  the  characteristic  title  of  Yankee  to  the 
cheap  badinage  of  an  English  officer,  so  we  are 
indebted  to  an  Englishman  for  the  first  respect 
able  figure  that  our  Yankee  cuts  in  American 
humor.  It  was  to  Judge  Haliburton,  of  her 
Britannic  Majesty's  North  American  Colonies, 


22  AMERICAN  HUMOR 

who  first  detected  how  much  sagacity,  dry  humor 
and  poetry  were  hidden  under  the  grotesque 
cover  of  Sam  Slick  of  Slickville,  that  the  world 
first  owed  the  birth  of  true  American  humor. 
Later  on  James  Russell  Lowell  took  up  the  work, 
but,  at  best,  he  only  reproduced  a  type  of  life 
of  a  small  section  of  the  great  American  Union. 
It  is  to  the  South  and  West  that  we  really  owe 
the  creation  and  expression  of  that  humor  which 
is  perhaps  most  characteristic  of  our  lives  and 
habits  as  a  people.  It  was  in  the  South,  and 
among  conditions  of  servitude  and  the  habits  of 
an  inferior  race,  that  there  sprang  up  a  humor 
and  pathos  as  distinct,  as  original,  as  perfect  and 
rare  as  any  that  ever  flowered  under  the  most 
beneficent  circumstances  of  race  and  culture.  It 
is  a  humor  whose  expression  took  a  most  ephem 
eral  form — oral,  rather  than  written.  It  abode 
with  us,  making  us  tolerant  of  a  grievous  wrong, 
and  it  will  abide  with  us  even  when  the  condi 
tions  have  passed  away.  It  is  singularly  free 
from  satire  and  unkind  lines.  It  was  simplicity 
itself.  It  touched  all  classes  and  conditions  of 
men.  Its  simple  pathos  was  recognized  by  the 
greatest  English  humorist  that  the  world  had 
known,  and  yet  it  has  no  place  in  enduring 
American  literature.  Even  Topsy  and  Uncle 


AMERICAN  HUMOR  23 

Tom  are  dead.  They  were  too  much  imbued 
with  a  political  purpose  to  retain  their  place  as 
a  humorist  creation. 

Yet  there  are  a  few  songs  that  will  live  when 
ambition's  characters  are  dead.  A  few  years  ago 
there  lived  and  died — too  obscurely  I  am  afraid 
for  our  reputation  as  critics — a  young  man  who, 
more  than  any  other  American,  seemed  to  have 
caught  the  characteristic  quality  of  negro  pathos 
and  humor.  Perhaps  posterity  will  be  more 
appreciative  of  his  worth,  and  future  generations 
who  think  of  "The  Old  Folks  at  Home"  will 
feel  some  touch  of  kindliness  for  the  memory  of 
Stephen  C.  Foster. 

Now,  as  we  approach  our  contemporary  humor 
ists,  let  us  pause  for  an  examination  of  the  forces 
which  for  the  last  twenty  years  have  been  shap 
ing  the  humorous  literature  of  the  land.  The 
character  of  these  forces  has  entirely  changed. 
The  character  of  the  press  is  different;  all  its 
pompous  dignity  and  most  of  its  acrimony  are 
gone.  The  exigencies  of  news  have  stopped  the 
stilted  editorials,  and  the  sagacious  modern  editor 
is  well  aware  of  the  fact  that  it  is  a  much  easier 
and  neater  thing  to  stilleto  a  man  with  a  line  of 
solid  minion  than  to  knock  him  down  with  a 
column  of  leaded  long  primer. 


24  AMERICAN  HUMOR 

One  of  the  strongest  points  of  modern  journal 
ism  is  its  humorous  local  sallies.  A  young  man, 
graduated  perhaps  from  the  case,  writes  humor 
ous  items  in  the  local  column  of  his  paper,  which 
are  read  more  and  are  better  appreciated  than 
all  the  rest  of  it,  and  the  readers  wonder  who 
the  rising  humorist  is  who  has  appeared  among 
them. 

I  Brevity  especially  is  the  soul  of  California  wit. 
For  instance,  the  reply  of  "you  bet,"  made  by  a 
San  Francisco  burglar  to  the  "you  get"  of  the 
householder  who  held  a  cocked  "six-shooter"  at 
his  head.  I  might  also  add  here  the  story  of  a  no 
torious  Calif ornian  gambler.  During  the  funeral 
service  the  hearse-horses  became  restive  and  start 
ed  off  prematurely  with  the  rest  of  the  mourners  in 
pursuit.  When  the  horses  had  been  stopped  and 
the  last  sad  rites  were  concluded,  the  friends  of 
the  deceased  wrote  his  widow  a  letter  acquaint 
ing  her  with  the  fact  that  they  had  given  her 
dead  husband  a  good  send-off,  and  that  although 
the  unpleasant  occurrence,  which  they  described, 
somewhat  marred  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion, 
it  gave  them  a  melancholy  satisfaction  to  inform 
her  that  "the  corpse  won."  This  illustrates  the 
humorous  but  irreverent  style  in  which  California 
newspaper  men  described  events  of  the  most 
serious  nature. 


AMERICAN  HUMOR  25 

If  we  are  to  take  the  criticisms  of  our  English 
friends,  American  humor  has  at  last  blossomed 
on  the  dry  stalk  of  our  national  life,  and  Artemus 
Ward  is  its  perfect  flower.  Personally,  I  fear 
there  is  a  want  of  purpose  in  him.  He  never 
leads  and  is  always  on  a  line  of  popular  senti 
ment  or  satire.  The  form  of  his  spelling  is  purely/ 
mechanical.  He  gives  the  half-humorist  slang 
of  the  people,  the  kind  of  expressions  used  ii 
the  stage-coach,  the  railway  carriage,  the  bar 
room,  or  the  village  tap.  If  he  did  not  gather, 
he  at  least  gave  public  voice  to  them.  He  con 
tributes  no  single  figure  to  American  literature 
but  his  own  character  of  showman,  and  it  is  very 
doubtful  if  even  that  figure,  respectable  as  it  is, 
bears  any  real  resemblance  to  any  known  Amer 
ican  type. 

The  Civil  War,  which  found  him  in  the  sum 
mit  of  his  popularity,  did  not  help  him  to  any 
better  results.  To  his  nature  the  War  was  only 
an  unpleasant  and  unnecessary  bother.  In 
fact  during  this  time  his  genius  seems  to  have 
left  him  and  fallen  upon  Orpheus  C.  Kerr  and 
Petroleum  V.  Nasby,  whose  pictures  of  South 
western  life  are  unequaled  for  force  and  fidelity. 
Artemus  Ward  had  the  good-fellow  humor  of 
the  story-teller,  to  whom  a  sympathizing  audi- 


26  AMERICAN  HUMOR 

ence  and  an  absence  of  any  moral  questioning 
were  essential  to  success.  His  success  in  Eng 
land  was  a  surprise  to  even  his  most  ardent 
admirers.  The  personality  of  the  man  as  a 
lecturer  had  much  to  do  with  his  reception  in 
England.  He  captivated  average  Englishmen 
by  his  cool  disregard  of  them,  his  quiet  audacity, 
and  his  complete  ignoring  of  the  traditions  of 
the  lecture-room.  He  wrote  to  me  to  say  that 
the  first  night  of  his  appearance  it  was  a  toss-up 
whether  he  would  be  arrested  after  the  lecture 
or  invited  to  dinner. 

It  would  be  hardly  fair  to  look  too  closely  into 
the  secret  of  his  popularity  in  England,  yet  if 
they  were  to  settle  the  question  of  American 
humor,  perhaps  it  would  be  well  if  we  did.  It 
was  after  the  war.  Englishmen  were  inclined  to 
be  friendly,  and  their  good  feeling  had  taken  the 
form  which  tneir  good  feeling  takes  toward  every 
thing  that  is  not  British — condescending  patron 
age.  Criticism  was  blandly  waived.  Ward  made 
many  personal  friends,  and  he  was  followed  to 
his  grave  in  Kensal  Green  by  some  of  the  most 
distinguished  men  in  the  country. 

To-day,  among  our  latest  American  humorists, 
such  as  Josh  Billings,  "The  Danbury  Newsman" 
and  Opheus  C.  Kerr,  Mark  Twain  stands  alone 


AMERICAN  HUMOR  27 

as  the  most  original  humorist  that  America  has 
yet  produced.  He  alone  is  inimitable.  Our  line 
of  humorists,  it  may  be  remarked,  is  a  long 
one,  but  we  cannot  spare  any  of  them  yet. 
We  need  not  however  lessen  our  admiration  for 
Lowell,  Holmes,  Irving  or  Curtis.  I  do  not 
think  a  perusal  of  "innocents  Abroad"  would 
endanger  the  security  of  the  "Sketch  Book." 
Perhaps,  after  all;  there  was  a  little  too  much 
fun.  Laughter  makes  us  doubly  serious  after 
ward,  and  we  do  not  want  to  be  humorists 
always,  turning  up  like  a  prize-fighter  at  each 
round,  still  smiling. 

If  anything,  the  Americans  are  too  prone  to 
laugh,  even  over  their  misfortunes:  they  must 
not  be  serious  no  matter  how  grave  the  occasion. 
I  will  relate  a  story  which  is  a  good  instance 
of  this. 

Some  years  ago,  while  riding  alone  through 
the  Sierras,  I  lost  my  way.  Suddenly  I  came 
across  a  dark-browed,  heavily- armed,  suspicious- 
looking  stranger,  whom  I  would  have  avoided  if 
possible,  but  as  that  was  not  to  be  done,  I  ap 
proached  him  and  asked  him  the  road  to  camp. 
The  heavily -armed  stranger  guided  me  to  the 
spot,  and  beguiled  the  road  with  one  or  two  very 
amusing  stories,  one  of  which  he  had  just  begun 


AMERICAN  HUMOR 

when  the  cross-road  leading  to  the  camp  came 
into  view.  My  guide  accompanied  me  in  order 
to  finish  his  story,  which  was  extremely  humor 
ous  in  its  nature,  to  within  a  short  distance  of 
the  camp,  and  then  departed.  On  arriving 
among  my  friends  I  was  astonished  to  find  a 
sheriff's  posse  was  on  hand  in  search  of  a  noted 
desperado,  whose  description  furnished  by  them 
identified  him  undoubtedly  with  the  man  who 
had,  in  order  to  finish  his  story,  placed  himself 
within  one  hundred  yards  of  his  deadly  enemies. 
Such  was  the  American  extreme.  Perhaps 
our  true  humorist  is  yet  to  come  :  when  he  does 
come  he  will  show  that  a  nation  which  laughs  so 
easily  has  still  a  great  capacity  for  deep  feeling, 
and  he  will,  I  think,  be  a  little  more  serious  than 
our  present  day  humorists. 


Reply  to  "  Toast  to  Literature  " 


Reply  to  "Toast  to  Literature" 
at  the  Royal  Academy 


On  Saturday  evening,  May  1,  1880,  to  inaugurate  the 
exhibition  which  opened  that  day,  the  President  and  Council 
of  the  Royal  Academy  gave  the  accustomed  entertainment, 
at  Burlington  House,  to  a  distinguished  company,  including 
His  Royal  Highness  the  Prince  of  Wales,  His  Royal  High 
ness  the  Duke  of  Cambridge,  and  other  members  of  the 
Royal  Family ;  Her  Majesty's  Ministers,  many  of  the  ex- 
Ministers,  foreign  Ambassadors,  Members  of  both  Houses  of 
Parliament,  and  other  gentlemen  of  position  and  influence. 

Sir  FREDERICK  LEIGHTON,  the  President,  said:  "I  have 
now  to  ask  you  to  drink  to  the  interest  of  Science  and  Liter 
ature.  "***  In  coupling  a  name  with  Literature  I  propose  to 
take  a  rather  unusual  course:  for  I  shall  call  upon  a  writer 
who  owes  us  no  allegiance  save  that  of  friendship  to  the  coun 
try  in  which  he  is  now  a  guest.  [Cheers.]  An  English 
writer,  nevertheless,  for  English  is  the  tongue  in  which  he 
delights  the  innumerable  host  of  his  readers;  English  is  the 
tongue  in  which  he  has  clothed  a  humor,  racy  and  delicate 
at  once,  and  has  married  to  it  a  most  subtle  pathos — a  pathos 
so  deep,  so  tender,  and  so  penetrating  that  we  rise  from  his 
pages  half  believing  that  wrong  is  an  untoward  accident  in 
the  world,  and  goodness  the  one  abiding,  inextinguishable 
thing.  [Cheers.]  This  company  will  be  glad,  I  am  confi 
dent,  of  the  opportunity  thus  offered  to  it  of  welcoming  in  its 
midst  the  great  American  humorist,  BRET  HARTE.  [Loud 
cheers.] 

I  PRESUME    I    am    selected    to   answer  to 
this  toast  as  a   native   of   a  country  which 
reads  more  English  books  and  pays  less  for  them 
than  any  other  nation.    [Laughter.]    Certainly, 
representing  as  I  do  a  free  people — who  of  their 


32       REPLY  TO  "TOAST  TO  LITERATURE" 

own  accord  read  four  volumes  of  Tennyson  to 
one  of  I^ongfellow,  [laughter]  I  might  claim 
a  hearing  here.  [Daughter.]  But  I  recognize 
in  your  kindly  greeting  the  same  welcome  ex 
tended  to  Hosea  Biglow,  Hans  Breitmann,  Arte- 
mus  Ward,  and  Mark  Twain.  [Cheers.]  I  recog 
nize  your  appreciation  of  what  is  said  to  be 
distinctive  American  literature — a  literature  that 
laughs  with  the  American  skies,  and  is  by  turns 
as  surprising  and  as  extravagant  as  the  American 
weather.  [Laughter.]  Indeed,  I  am  not  certain 
that  these  cyclones  of  American  humor  that  cross 
the  Atlantic  are  not  as  providential  as  the  Amer- 
can  storms  that  mitigate  the  austere  monotony 
of  the  English  climate.  [Laughter.]  For  it  has 
been  settled  by  your  reviewers  that  American 
literature  is  American  humor,  and  that  this 
American  humor  is  a  kind  of  laughable  impro 
priety,  more  or  less  scantily  clothed  in  words. 
It  has  been  settled  that  you  are  a  sober  people, 
and  that  nobody  in  America  takes  life  seriously 
— not  even  a  highwayman — and  that  our  litera 
ture  is  a  reflex  of  our  life.  But  I  think  that  a 
majority  of  this  Academy  are  kind  enough  to 
recognize  some  principles  of  Art  underlying  this 
characteristic.  And  I  consider  that  no  higher 


BRET    HARTE 

CARTOON   BY    "SPY"    (LESLIE  WARD)   IN  FANITY  F4IR,  1879 


REPLY  TO  "TOAST  TO  LITERATURE"        33 

compliment  has  been  paid  American  humor  than 
that  the  type  of  American  drawn  by  your  great 
est  English  humorist  has  been  supplanted  by 
types  drawn  by  Lowell,  Artemus  Ward,  and 
Mark  Twain. 

[Mr.  Bret  Harte  concluded  by  thanking  the 
President  for  the  toast.] 


The  Improved   /Esop 

For  Intelligent  Modern  Children 
By  Bret  Harte 


Fable  I 
The  Fox  and  the  Grapes 

A  thirsty  fox  one  day,  in  passing  through  a 
vineyard,  noticed  that  the  grapes  were  hang 
ing  in  clusters  from  vines  which  were  trained 
to  such  a  height  as  to  be  out  of  his  reach. 

"Ah,"  said  the  fox,  with  a  supercilious 
smile,  "I've  heard  of  this  before.  In  the 
twelfth  century  an  ordinary  fox  of  average 
culture  would  have  wasted  his  energy  and 
strength  in  the  vain  attempt  to  reach  yonder 
sour  grapes.  Thanks  to  my  knowledge  of  vine 
culture,  however,  I  at  once  observe  that  the 
great  height  and  extent  of  the  vine,  the  drain 
upon  the  sap  through  the  increased  number  of 
tendrils  and  leaves  must,  of  necessity,  impov 
erish  the  grape,  and  render  it  unworthy  the 
consideration  of  an  intelligent  animal.  Not 
any  for  me  thank  you."  With  these  words  he 
coughed  slightly,  and  withdrew. 

MORAL — This  fable  teaches  us  that  an  intel 
ligent  discretion  and  some  botanical  know 
ledge  are  of  the  greatest  importance  in  grape 
culture. 


36 


Fable  II 
The  Fox  and  the  Stork 

A  fox  one  day  invited  a  stork  to  dinner,  but 
provided  for  the  entertainment  only  the  first 
course,  soup.  This  being  in  a  shallow  dish, 
of  course  the  fox  lapped  up  readily,  but  the 
stork,  by  means  of  his  long  bill,  was  unable 
to  gain  a  mouthful. 

"You  do  not  seem  fond  of  soup,"  said  the 
fox,  concealing  a  smile  in  his  napkin.  "Now 
it  is  one  of  my  greatest  weaknesses." 

'  'You  certainly  seem  to  project  yourself  out 
side  of  a  large  quantity, ' '  said  the  stork,  rising 
with  some  dignity,  and  examining  his  watch 
with  considerable  empressement;  "but  I  have  an 
appointment  at  eight  o'clock,  which  I  had 
forgotten.  I  must  ask  to  be  excused.  Au  revoir. 
By  the  way,  dine  with  me  to-morrow." 

The  fox  assented,  arrived  at  the  appointed 
time,  but  found,  as  he  fully  expected,  nothing 
on  the  table  but  a  single  long-necked  bottle, 
containing  olives,  which  the  stork  was  com 
placently  extracting  by  the  aid  of  his  long  bill. 

"Why,  you  do  not  seem  to  eat  anything," 
said  the  stork,  with  great  nai'vette,  when  he 
had  finished  the  bottle. 

"No,"  said  the  fox,  significantly,  "l  am 
waiting  for  the  second  course." 

'I  What  is  that?  "  asked  the  stork,  blandly. 

"Stork,  stuffed  with  olives,"  shrieked  the 
fox  in  a  very  pronounced  manner,  and  in 
stantly  dispatched  him. 

MORAL — True  hospitality  obliges  the  host 
to  sacrifice  himself  for  his  guests. 

38 


Fable  III 

The  W^olf  and  the  Lamb 

A  wolf  one  day,  drinking  from  a  running 
stream,  observed  a  lamb  also  drinking  from 
the  same  stream  at  some  distance  from  him. 

' '  I  have  yet  to  learn, '  'said  the  wolf,  address 
ing  the  lamb  with  dignified  severity,"  what 
right  you  have  to  muddy  the  stream  from 
which  I  am  drinking." 

"Your  premises  are  incorrect, "  replied  the 
lamb  with  bland  politeness,  "for  if  you  will 
take  the  trouble  to  examine  the  current  criti 
cally  you  will  observe  that  it  flows  from  you 
to  me,  and  that  any  disturbance  of  sediment 
here  would  be,  so  far  as  you  are  concerned, 
entirely  local." 

Possibly  you  are  right, ' '  returned  the  wolf, 
"but,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  you  are  the  person 
who,  two  years  ago,  used  some  influence  against 
me  at  the  primaries." 

Impossible, ' '  replied  the  lamb;  '  'two  years 
ago  I  was  not  born." 

'  'Ah !  well, ' '  added  the  wolf,  composedly,  "I 
am  wrong  again.  But  it  must  convince  every 
intelligent  person  who  has  listened  to  this  con 
versation  that  I  am  altogether  insane,  and 
consequently  not  responsible  for  my  actions." 

With  this  remark,  he  at  once  dispatched  the 
lamb,  and  was  triumphantly  acquitted. 

MORAL — This  fable  teaches  us  how  errone 
ous  may  be  the  popular  impression  in  regard 
to  the  distribution  of  alluvium  and  the  forma 
tion  of  river  deltas. 


40 


The  Piracy  of  Bret  Harte's 
Fables 


XX 


The  Piracy  of  Bret  Harte's 
Fables 


Bret  Harte  ever  essayed  to  emulate 
•••  the  example  of  immortal  ^Bsop  is  not 
generally  known,  even  among  those  who  are 
fairly  familiar  with  his  work.  It  is  certain, 
however,  that  he  wrote  and  published  at  least 
three  fables.  And,  what  is  more,  it  is  equally 
certain  that  these  inoffensive  and  not  very  am 
bitious  ventures  into  a  difficult  literary  field, 
brought  him  an  experience  humorous  to  look 
back  upon,  but  which  must  have  been  exas 
perating  at  the  time. 

He  was  charged  with  "literary  piracy."  At 
first  glance  the  charge  seemed  not  without 
foundation.  The  humor  of  the  situation  de 
velops  however,  when  it  becomes  evident  that 
Harte  was  not  only  innocent  of  flying  the  liter 
ary  Black  Flag,  but  was  himself  the  victim  of 
piratical  enterprise.  The  three  fables  were  not 
stolen  by  him  but  from  him. 

In  the  columns  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  early 
in  the  year  1882,  there  appeared  the  following 
arraignment : 


46    THE  PIRACY  OF  BRBT  HARTE'S  FABLES 

IS   THIS   A   CASE   OF   PIRACY? 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Tribune: 

SIR  :— I  notice  in  your  paper  of  to-day  an  ar 
ticle  copied  from  The  London  Echo  headed,  "Bret 
Harte's  New  Book  —A  Collection  of  Fables." 
Of  the  five,  four  have  been  stolen  verbatim  et  litera 
tim  from  my  volumes, "Out  of  the  World,"  pub 
lished  five  years  ago  and  favorably  noticed  in  The 
Tribune,  if  I  mistake  not,  and  the  fifth  has  been 
expanded  and  spoiled.  Mr.  Harte  seems  to  have 
gone  to  the  length  of  appropriating  the  illustra 
tions  of  my  friend,  Mr.  F.  K.  Church.  I  have 
heard  of  wholesale  literary  piracies,  but  there  is 
a  sweet,  luscious  largeness  about  Mr.  Harte's 
work  which  reminds  one  of  nothing  so  much  as 
a  mammoth  California  fruit,  ripened  in  an  Eng 
lish  hothouse.  Yours  truly, 

G.  T.  LANIGAN. 
New  York,  Jan.  8,  1882. 

The  newspaper  article  to  which  Mr.  Lanigan 
refers  was  a  reprint  by  the  New  York  Tribune  of 
a  book  review  first  published  in  the  London  Echo. 
The  work  under  review  was  called  "Bret  Harte's 
New  Book,"  and  the  publishers  neglected  to 
state  that  only  a  part  of  the  book's  contents 
was  from  the  pen  of  Bret  Harte.  The  reviewer 
said  : 


THE  PIRACY  OF  BRET  HARTE'S  FABLES    47 

"Mr.  Bret  Harte  has  gone  to  the  author, 
whom  that  popular  lecturer,  the  Rev.  Jackson 
Wray,  aptly  describes  as  "Rare  Old  ^Esop," 
and  has  produced  a  new  book  of  Fables  whose 
chief  fault  is  that  it  is  so  small,  but  though 
the  volume  is  thin  the  fun  is  not  so  by  any 
means." 

After  particularizing  concerning  certain  of 
the  fables,  not  choosing,  as  it  happened,  any 
of  the  genuine  Harte  products,  the  reviewer 
continued  :  ' '  Some  of  the  fables  in  the  book 
seem  to  have  been  written  with  an  eye  to 
passing  events.  Take,  for  instance,  the  follow 
ing  and  read  it  in  connection  with  the  extra 
ordinary  incidents  of  the  trial  of  Guiteau." 
Then  follows  ''The  Wolf  and  the  Lamb," 
which  was  one  of  the  fables  that  Harte  really 
did  write. 

Bret  Harte  *s  state  of  mind  upon  having  his 
attention  called  to  Mr.  L,anigan's  accusation 
may  be  better  imagined  when  his  opinion  as  to 
the  piracy  of  an  author's  writings  is  more  clearly 
known. 

In  the  early  days  of  Harte's  career  as  an 
author  there  was  no  international  copyright  law, 
and  many  English  publishers  reaped  a  rich  har 
vest  by  placing  on  the  market  the  writings  of 


48    THE  PIRACY  OF  BRET  HARTE'S  FABLES 

American  authors.  And  I  may  remark  in  pass 
ing — with  shame  for  my  fellow-countrymen, — 
the  pirates  were  not  all  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  for  not  a  few  American  publishers  took 
advantage  of  opportunities  to  make  money  in 
this  manner.  Harte,  like  many  other  American 
authors,  was  a  sufferer  from  this  abuse. 

His  attitude  toward  the  flagrant  piracy  by 
English  publishers  was  shown  when  in  1873  he 
brought  suit,  through  his  American  publishers, 
for  an  injunction  to  restrain  the  importation  and 
sale  of  pirated  editions  of  his  works.  The  articles 
in  question  were  published  in  The  Overland  Monthly 
and  other  magazines.  The  injunction  was  sus 
tained,  and  the  books  then  in  the  custom  house 
were  not  allowed  to  enter  here. 

The  following  characteristic  letter  of  Mark 
Twain  will  serve  to  make  clearer  a  contemporary 
author's  feelings  on  the  subject.  I  give  the 
letter  in  full  because  it  contains  much  of 
Twain's  humor  and  has  never  before,  so  far  as 
I  am  able  to  learn,  been  published  in  book  form. 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Spectator: 

SIR: — I  only  venture  to  intrude  upon  you  be 
cause  I  come,  in  some  sense,  in  the  interest  of 
public  morality,  and  this  makes  my  mission  res- 


THE  PIRACY  OF  BRET  HARTE'S  FABLES    49 

pectable.  Mr.  John  Camden  Hotten,  of  London, 
has,  of  his  own  individual  motion,  republished 
several  of  my  books  in  England.  I  do  not  pro- 
test  against  this,  for  there  is  no  law  that  could 
give  effect  to  the  protest ;  and,  besides,  publishers 
are  not  accountable  to  the  laws  of/heaven  and 
earth  in  any  country,  as  I  understand  it.  But 
my  grievance  is  this :  My  books  are  bad  enough 
just  as  they  are  written,  then  what  must  they  be 
after  Mr.  John  Camden  Hotten  has  composed 
half-a-dozen  chapters  and  added  the  same  to 
them  ?  I  feel  that  all  true  hearts  will  bleed  for 
an  author  whose  volumes  have  fallen  under  such 
a  dispensation  as  this.  If  a  friend  of  yours,  or 
even  if  you  yourself,  were  to  write  a  book  and 
send  it  adrift  among  the  people,  with  the  gravest 
apprehensions  that  it  was  not  up  to  what  it  ought 
to  be  intellectually,  how  would  you  like  to  have 
John  Camden  Hotten  sit  down  and  stimulate  his 
powers,  and  drool  two  or  three  original  chapters 
on  to  the  end  of  that  book?  Would  not  the 
world  seem  cold  and  hollow  to  you  ?  Would  you 
not  feel  that  you  wanted  to  die  and  be  at  rest  ? 
Little  the  world  knows  of  true  suffering.  And 
suppose  he  should  entitle  these  chapters,  "Holi- 
iday  Literature,"  "True  Stories  of  Chicago," 
4 'On  Children,"  "Train  Up  a  Child,  and  Away 
He  Goes,"  and  "Vengeance,"  and  then,  on  the 
strength  of  having  evolved  these  marvels  from 
his  own  consciousness,  go  and  "Copyright"  the 
entire  book,  and  put  on  the  title-page  a  picture 


50    THE  PIRACY  OF  BRET  HARTE'S  FABLES 

of  a  man  with  his  hand  in  another  man's  pocket 
and  the  legend  "All  Rights  Reserved,"  (I  only 
suppose  the  picture ;  still  it  would  be  rather  a 
neat  thing).  And,  further,  suppose  that  in  the 
kindness  of  his  heart  and  the  exuberance  of  his 
untaught  fancy,  this  thoroughly  well-meaning 
innocent  should  expunge  the  modest  title  which 
you  had  given  your  book,  and  replace  it  with  so 
foul  an  invention  as  this,  "Screamers  and  Eye- 
Openers, "  and  went  and  got  that  copyrighted, 
too.  And  suppose  that  on  top  of  all  this,  he 
continually  and  persistently  forgot  to  offer  you 
a  single  penny  or  even  send  you  a  copy  of  your 
mutilated  book  to  burn.  Let  us  suppose  all 
this.  L,et  him  suppose  it  with  strength  enough, 
and  then  he  will  know  something  about  woe. 
Sometimes  when  I  read  one  of  those  additional 
chapters  constructed  by  John  Camden  Hotten, 
I  feel  as  if  I  wanted  to  take  a  broom-straw  and 
go  and  knock  that  man's  brains  out.  Not  in 
anger,  for  I  feel  none.  Oh!  not  in  anger;  but 
only  to  see,  that  is  all.  Mere  idle  curiosity. 
And  Mr.  Hotten  says  that  one  nom  de  plume  of 
mine  is  "Carl  Byng."  I  hold  that  there  is  no 
affliction  in  this  world  that  makes  a  man  feel  so 
downtrodden  and  abused  as  the  giving  him  a 
name  that  does  not  belong  to  him.  How  would 
this  sinful  aborigine  feel  if  I  were  to  call  him 
John  Camden  Hottentot,  and  come  out  in  the 
papers  and  say  he  was  entitled  to  it  by  divine 
right?  I  do  honestly  believe  it  would  throw 


THE  PIRACY  OF  BRET  HARTB'S  FABLES    51 

him  into  a  brain  fever,  if  there  were  not  an  in 
superable  obstacle  in  the  way. 

Yes — to  come  to  the  original  subject,  which  is 
the  sorrow  that  is  slowly  but  surely  undermin 
ing  my  health — Mr.  Hotten  prints  unrevised, 
uncorrected,  and  in  some  respects,  spurious 
books,  with  my  name  to  them  as  author,  and 
thus  embitters  his  customers  against  one  of  the 
most  innocent  of  men.  Messrs.  George  Rout- 
ledge  and  Sons  are  the  only  English  publishers 
who  pay  me  any  copyright,  and  therefore  if  my 
books  are  to  disseminate  either  suffering  or 
crime  among  the  readers  of  our  language,  I 
would  ever  so  much  rather  they  did  it  through 
that  house,  and  then  I  could  contemplate  the 
spectacle  calmly  as  the  dividends  came  in. 

I  am  sir,  etc., 
SAMUEL  T.  CLEMENS  ("Mark  Twain"). 

L,ondon,  September  20,  1872. 

Bret  Harte,  though  in  Glasgow  at  the  time 
Mr.  Lanigan's  accusation  was  printed  in  the 
New  York  Tribune,  immediately  made  reply  to 
the  same  through  the  columns  of  that  paper. 
Mr.  L,anigan  we  hope  considered  the  answer 
sufficiently  full  and  explicit. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Tribune: 

SIR: — I  find  in  the  columns  of  The  Tribune  a 
communication  from  a  Mr.  Lanigan  claiming  the 


52    THE  PIRACY  OF  BRET  HARTE'S  FABLES 

authorship  of  certain  fables  contained  in  a  book 
published  in  London,  bearing  upon  its  cover  the 
inscription,  "Fables  by  G.  Washington  J£sop" 
and  upon  its  title  page,  "Fables  by  G.  Washing 
ton  ^Esop  and  Bret  Harte."  Three  of  these 
fables  I  recognize  as  my  own,  but  where  and 
when  written  I  cannot  now  recall. 

As  Mr.  L,anigan  has  seen  fit  to  abuse  me  for 
instigating  the  publication  of  the  book,  and 
claiming  its  authorship,  it  may  be  necessary  for 
me  to  state  that  I  neither  authorized  its  publica 
tion  nor  knew  of  its  existence  until  it  was  pub 
licly  sold.  When  I  read  it,  I  wrote  the  publisher, 
who  apologized,  but  at  the  same  time  pointed 
out  the  obvious  fact — which  seems  to  have  es 
caped  the  attention  of  Mr.  L,anigan — that  he 
had,  neither  on  title  page  or  cover,  claimed  the 
work  as  wholly  mine.  And  it  is  only  just  to 
him  to  say  he  admitted  a  certain  wrong  done  to 
me,  in  so  far  as  to  voluntarily  offer  to  "consider" 
any  pecuniary  damage  I  might  have  sustained. 
That  damage  I  am  not  "considering"  here. 
But  if  I  have  been  wantonly  or  accidentally 
used  as  an  advertisement  for  a  book,  which  is 
amusing,  I  do  not  see  that  it  follows  that  I 
should  suffer  myself  to  be  made  an  advertise 
ment  for  Mr.  Lanigan,  who  is  certainly  not. 

BRET  HARTE. 

Glasgow,  Jan.  28,  1882. 

Bret  Harte  says  in  this  letter  that  he  cannot 
recall  when  and  where  he  wrote  the  fables,  but 


THE  PIRACY  OF  BRET  HARTE'S  FABLES     53 

some  may  remember  the  Homoeopathic  Hospital 
Fair,  held  in  the  hall  at  112  to  116  Lake  Street, 
Chicago,  November  19-26,  1874,  and  Harte's 
contribution  to  "The Chicago  Hospital  Bazaar," 
published  in  the  interests  of  the  Fair  at  that 
time.  It  was  here  his  three  fables  first  ap 
peared.  The  reason  for  their  not  being  more 
widely  known,  and  inserted  by  the  publishers 
in  his  collected  works,  may  perhaps  be  that, 
coming  through  the  channels  in  which  they  did, 
they  escaped  notice.  They  are  certainly,  as  a 
reading  will  show,  well  worthy  of  preservation. 


-,. 


DEC191997 


